In the past few years, advancing technology has given people the ability to communicate as never before. For example, the advent of cellular communications networks, the Internet and other communications media make for quick and convenient means of conveying information from one person to another.
However, there are multiple competing technologies offering enhanced communication abilities, and often times each technology has multiple competing formats and/or protocols for carrying out that technology. As a result, interoperability of these systems, devices, formats, protocols and/or networks is a serious concern. In addition, some of these technologies utilize devices with limited input capabilities, which in turn reduce the efficiency of communicating through these devices. Electronic messaging is one area where the reduced efficiency may be burdensome to a user. Some types of electronic messaging, such as SMS, operate in nearly real-time. A typical message will include multiple text characters. However, these messages are often sent using devices with limited input capability, such as cellular telephones which usually only have 12 keys. Entering multiple keystrokes to generate each text character may lead to a delay in responding to a message. This, in turn, may cause recipients to wait longer when receiving an instant message due to a user inputting characters on a limited input device. In a nearly real-time communication environment, such delay may be unacceptable. Furthermore, none of these new communications technologies are particularly helpful for communication across language barriers.
U.S. published patent application 2002/0140732, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference, describes a method, system and storage medium for an iconic language communication tool. The system includes a host system for generating an iconic language communication template for receiving a user icon selection, presenting the iconic language communication template and receiving the user icon selection from the iconic language communication template. A network and a database are in communication with the host system.
U.S. published patent application 2002/0184309, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference, describes systems and methods for reducing the amount of input a user is required to enter for an electronic message. When users change their capability to engage in an electronic messaging session, for instance when they go off-line, a command may be sent to other users. This command may take the form of a character sequence not normally occurring in the written language, which is interpreted by network devices and changes the display of the icon associated with the user who has gone off-line.